A Fast, Time-Sliced, Multiple Data Bus Structure for Overlapping I/O and CPU Operations

A specialized computer system, MIDAS, designed for fast interactive processing of event structured data, is being developed in the Nuclear Science Division of LBL. The system will minimize analysis time by overlapping data transfers among various components of the system with the calculations and transformations performed by several classes of processors operating asynchronously and in parallel. A multiple data bus structure and its associated connecting logic enable blocks of memory to be rapidly switched, in a programmed manner, among various classes of intelligent processors. These interconnections include a phased, time-slice scheme which allocates a 13 nanosecond window to multiple processors connected to a memory block. Multiple parallel data busses allow 'concurrent' data transfers between the memory and various independent processors.